


Bits and Pieces

by Rosehip



Series: Strange Luck [10]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-10
Updated: 2018-07-14
Packaged: 2018-12-13 11:34:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11758986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rosehip/pseuds/Rosehip
Summary: Not everything is a grand adventure, but sometimes the little things are what you remember, looking back.Here are moments in the lives of the Kinloch Hold apprentices where nothing was blowing up, electrified, on fire, or crumbling. I don't promise nothing will be undead.





	1. First Morning

9:16 Dragon

 

Jowan awoke in confusion, staring at the bunk above him, rather than the distant ceiling as he should have been. Why did he sleep down here? Ohhhh right. The elf baby they'd brought in yesterday, who currently drooled into Jowan's armpit, had needed someone to. At least it was only drool.

 

It felt nice, really. Not the drool. To not be the youngest. To hug someone. To be needed. Jowan didn't kid himself that he'd ever see his family again. Would his own little brother even remember him? His sister had been less than two when he'd been sent to the chantry, so she surely wouldn't.

 

The elf jumped, and Jowan braced himself. He remembered how hard it had been to wake up in a strange place, away from everyone he knew. Sure enough, the little one whimpered and looked like he'd start crying all over again. He'd make himself sick if this kept up. Jowan would know.

 

“Hey, no.” Jowan stroked the tiny shoulder. “It's all right. Nobody will hurt you. It'll be a big day and you'll have lots to do. It's easier not to be sad when you're busy.”

 

“I don't know how not to be sad.”

 

Ouch. Jowan hugged the smaller boy tighter. “I guess not. All right, I'm sorry. You can be sad as long as you need to.”

 

Carys, the girl from the upper bunk hopped down. “Thanks for yesterday, Jowan. I just have no idea about elves or little kids.”

 

“Only child?”

 

“Yeah. From the middle of nowhere. We ran into elves sometimes but they mostly shot at us.”

 

Tiny fingers clung hard enough to hurt. _Nice. Now he thinks you're ancestral enemies._ “Well, um, do you mind trading beds?”

 

“Oh, Maker! Thank you. I wanted to ask but, I mean, is it really fair to make him all your problem?”

 

“He won't be a problem for me.”


	2. Stubborn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On Macsen's first day of living in Kinloch Hold, he starts to see what living here will be like. Also, some of its denizens get an idea of what living with him will be like. (He's kind of a pain in the butt, actually.)

Jowan hadn't told the truth. The shemlen did hurt Macsen the next day. They cut his arm and took some blood. An older shemlenasha argued that they should wait, that he was too little; but a new metal shemlen ( _templar_ \- he should try to remember the word) said there was no waiting.

_Vhenpapae would never have said to come if he knew they would do that._ He tried very hard not to cry, for once, but that just made everything hurt more.

The shemlenasha was called Wynne. She picked him up and whispered to him that the worst was over. She sent magic into his arm and it hurt less. Macsen knew he should thank her. He shoved against her, dropped to the floor and dashed behind a huge piece of furniture, instead. Shemlen wouldn't fit and couldn't reach him.

They proved it right away. Macsen flattened himself against the wall as a huge, metal arm grabbed for him. He needn't have bothered. The elbow joint was far too wide and shemlen had a very hard time bending in the metal casings. The shemlen couldn't even come close to reaching him.

“Come out right this minute!”

“No.”

“Do stop that, Ser,” said Wynne. “I'll handle this.” She knelt down and peeked into the shadows at him. “That really is all,” she continued. “We don't need to do anything else to you besides measure you for new clothes. None of the ones we have are small enough. That won't hurt a bit. Don't you want new clothes?”

_What is wrong with the clothes I have now? Mamae made them for me._ “No.”

“Do you just plan to sit behind that bookcase all day?”

“Maybe.”

“All right. Why?”

_Because there are too many shemlen. Because when someone says I won't be hurt it isn't true. Because you're going to take away my clothes and they're all I have left. Because everything is loud and bright and scary and weird._ “Because I want to.”

“Is there anything you'd like more?”

“I want to go home!”

She sighed. “I'm sorry. We can't let you do that.”

“I know.”

“Is there anything that you want that we _can_ give you?”

Macsen stared hard at her. It had to be a trick. Shemlen never gave anything... except Jowan had. Maybe shemlen had to learn how to be awful and child shems didn't know how yet.

Wynne smiled at him. “I know nothing has gone as you think it should for a long time, now. So, if you'll come out and put up with just a little bit more, then I will give you something in return, if I can. Do you have a favorite food?”

Macsen had to think... what did shemlen call things? They had their own word for the big orange gourds his people called sun fruit. He liked those, especially in spicy soup. He liked venison, but who didn't? He liked Vhenmamae's bluebush seed cakes. He liked fried yucca blossoms in eggs. He liked berries. He liked the flat mushrooms with green onions. All of his favorite things were nothing like shemlen food. Even when they used the same foods, they cooked them very differently. It was like they didn't want things to taste good.

Of course, all this just made him think of home again. Everything did. He sat with his back to the wall and rested his chin on his knees.

“Have you come up with anything?” Wynne prompted, after a while.

“I can't have anything I want. I'm sick of it.”

“You don't say,” she muttered under her breath. She probably didn't know Macsen heard. Aloud she said “What do you like of the things you have now?”

“I like my own clothes. I like mamae's necklace. I don't want new things.”

“Nobody will take your necklace away. We all have something small that is important only to us. I shouldn't have admitted that. I should just have offered to let you keep it if you came out.”

That sounded like more honesty than any shemlen had used, so far. “Can I keep my clothes if I come out? Just until I'm bigger?”

“That is ridiculous. This whole thing is.” The templar grumbled and stomped over. “If we have to move the shelves, then we will. I'll get some more men in here to move the books.”

Macsen squeaked. He hadn't thought that far ahead. Now when they reached him they'd be angry at the trouble they'd taken.

“Please, don't. Why don't we suggest this to Gregoir, and see what he says?”

“Because what's the point? He has to live under our rules now and needs to get used to that.”

Wynne drew the other away and spoke softly. “To be honest, no clothes we make him will ever be useful to another mage. We've never had anyone so tiny. It would be a complete waste of time and fabric. He's hardly a flight risk, at his age.”

“That's not what Ethan said.”

“I heard. The tower is hardly the same as an inn with a cat door.”

While they argued, Macsen thought. They wanted him to come out. He didn't want to be hurt anymore. The angrier they got, the more likely they would be to hurt him. He thought of Vhenpapae's missing fingers. This metal shemlen wanted what shemlen always wanted- for him to do as told, no matter what.

“I'll come out,” Macsen said, his voice small.

The two shemlen stopped arguing. “All right,” said Wynne. “Do you need help?”

“No. But promise not to hurt me before I do. And ask about my clothes. It can be yes or no, but ask?”

“Fine,” muttered the templar. “I wasn't looking forward to moving that thing.”

Macsen crept out from the shadowy nook. He kept an eye on the other two, and dodged to the side when Wynne tried to pick him up again.

She insisted on holding his hand as they went back down the stairs to see Gregoir, who turned out to be a huge shemlen with a booming voice. Macsen regretted not letting Wynne carry him, and hid behind her. She squeezed his hand. She made the case for the waste of making toddler clothes when they so rarely needed them, when he'd arrived with two sets of perfectly good clothes that fit.

“You make a good case,” said Gregoir. “Child, come out and let me talk to you a moment.”

Macsen did, but pressed against the side of Wynne's leg. She wasn't who he wanted, but he'd take whatever support he could.

“It will be too cold in the autumn, especially to go running around without shoes and socks. You can keep your clothing until then. But you must understand something. You are a mage of the circle. You belong here now.”

_I don't belong here. I belong with my people._ But he nodded, as the man wanted.

Wynne spoke to him in a soothing voice as they left. She murmured that he would soon feel at home. In time, he'd think less of what had been home, before.

_I can't let that happen. I can't forget my people. Vhenpapae said to come back. Ghilan'ain, how can I ever do that?_

Wynne left him with a group of shemlen children and another older shemlen who talked a lot. He didn't understand even a third of what she said, though. “Don't worry about it,” whispered Jowan. “It took me a while, too. I used to be the littlest. I'll help.” But she yelled at him for talking and Macsen was left to muddling through, again.

That evening, they returned to the dormitory as the sky darkened. Macsen fell into bed, exhausted. A bit of breeze brushed across his face. He opened his eyes and looked around in confusion. How could the wind blow, inside this huge place of stone?

He got up, and walked around the room, looking for the places the air moved most. Thunder crashed outside, and lightning flickered in the windows overhead. The windows all had glass. Most of them were small, but not all of them. And some of them _opened to let the air in_. Someone went over and shut one of them with a pole.

Macsen needed to practice climbing.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I get the impression that the elven language works in a way that allows for construction of new words by sticking all the old words together. Shemlenasha would be "human woman" by that logic. She's older but I stopped myself from adding hahren to it because enough is enough, really.


	3. Grief's Echo

9:16 Dragon, Late Autumn

 

Macsen stared at the sets of clothes folded on his bed. The blue and mulberry colored robes had a lot more parts and clothes to go under them than he’d ever had, before. He wasn’t sure how to put them on.

Enchanter Wynne had come down herself to give him these. The full mages almost never came into the apprentice dormitories. “Remember what Greagoir said,” she chided him as she stroked his hair. “You have to start wearing these, now. You’re one of us.”

He didn’t mind the idea of the robes as much as he had at one time. Maybe if he didn’t stand out as much, the metal shemlen would glower at him less often. That didn’t mean he wanted to lose his other clothes, though. He’d lost everything. He started to cry, again. He couldn’t help it.

“Goodness, you are so much trouble sometimes,” Wynne picked him up and for once, Macsen didn’t dodge.

She let him cry himself out and wiped his face for him afterward. “It’s time, you know. It’s getting too cold for summer clothes, anyway.”

Macsen knew that, and he was often chilly. Still, why did he feel like he was losing his family all over again?

“Do you want me to help you change clothes?” asked Jowan, as he looked up at them. “I can show you how all the fasteners work.”

What else could he do? Macsen nodded, and Wynne set him down.

“I’ll wait here and will take your old clothes when you’re ready.”

 

They changed in the bathroom. Jowan pulled his own clothes off and put them back on to show Macsen how to do it, and then helped when Macsen’s fingers didn’t want to work the laces. Macsen picked up his old clothes and hugged them to his chest. He almost imagined he could still smell home on them, even though they’d been washed dozens of times. Idea- Macsen pulled the cord out of the hood of his tunic and slipped it into one of his new pockets.

They went back out and Macsen handed over one of his last connections to his real home. Jowan reached into Macsen’s footlocker and pulled out the other set. Macsen growled at him for the betrayal.

“I’m sorry. She knows you have another set though,” Jowan said. He handed them to Wynne.

“It’s true.” Wynne knelt down to talk to Macsen. “You’ll be all right. I know it’s very hard to lose family, but you have a new family in all of us.”

Macsen shrugged. He knew she wanted him to agree but he felt like nobody’s child. She smiled, even though she looked sad, and said she knew it would take a while. She rumpled his hair and left.

Jowan took Macsen’s hand and slipped the other cord into it, unseen.

Macsen knew then that Jowan belonged to Dirthamen, shemlen or not.


	4. When Teachers Think You're Stupid

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jowan and Macsen are about 12 and 8, respectively.

9:20 Dragon

 

Macsen eyed Jowan's stack of thick books with a mix of curiosity and envy. He'd finished his own projects: read a short essay by a stuffy priest, light a candle with magic, finish a series of math problems. He doodled aimlessly along the margins of the math exercise.

 

“Are you done already?” asked Jowan.

 

“Yes. It's easy.”

 

“Why don't you tell Enchanter Dahlia so, and you can have something more interesting to do?”

 

“Whenever I do, she tells me not to be so uppity and gives me more of the same thing. More is not harder, just boringer. I think she thinks you do my work.”

 

“Want to do some of mine? All Uldred ever did was drown us in assignments and then wander off to do his own thing. Sini seems to think she needs to match him for the amount, anyway.”

 

“All right. Which book can I have?”

 

Jowan got a sly look as he handed over a battered old book from the middle of his stack of things to get to. Macsen eagerly opened it, only to discover that it didn't have any words he knew. At all.

 

He made a face at Jowan. “Shemlen'alas. Tel garas solasan.”

 

Jowan looked sheepish as he laughed. “I'm sorry, I had to. That's in Tevene. They'll teach it to you when they start you with the older apprentices.”

 

“Everything is always going to happen later! Where's the beginner book? I could start now.”

 

“I think there's a spare. Be right back.” Jowan went to another corner of the library and climbed on a ladder. When he came back he said “Found it. I got that first part, by the way. Brat. What was that second bit?”

 

“Basically, 'don't think you're so smart.' I will catch up with you, you know. I would do it faster if Enchanter Dahlia didn't think elves were dumb.”

 

“What's her issue? I know she'd be happy to be rid of you.”

 

“She says I lack self control. I _have_ self control! You can tell by how I've never zapped her.”

 

“Fair enough, really.”


	5. What I Want to Do When I Grow Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jowan has so many questions. Why DID pretty Silvana Amell join him and his nerdy best friend when she could have her pick of friends?
> 
> And when the void did Macsen learn politics?

9:23 Dragon, Late Winter

The apprentices sat scattered around various corners of the first-floor library to attend to personal studies. Warm light from the chandeliers dappled the floors and tables, despite the early hour. The clerestory admitted no light but an iron gray from the afternoon's thick cloudcover. Silvana and Macsen sat with Jowan in the most secluded corner they could snag before anyone else. Silvana worked on her Tevene, which few people outside the Circle spoke. Macsen read a much-mended book as old as the Circle itself, if Jowan had to guess. Irving loved to give him the obscure stuff. Ser Bran stood nearby, unobtrusive as possible for a man carrying a sword. He'd leave them alone unless they got loud.

Dahlia's piercing voice carried from the center where she taught another generation of illiterate children to read and revere the chantry. Jowan did his best to ignore the old bitch. He hadn't really cared about her one way or another until she played a part in nearly getting Macsen killed. (Fortunately, the kid had risen to the challenge, but who could have expected that?) Silvana had been allowed to skip that class entirely, being perfectly literate, indoctrinated, and trilingual (but not in Tevene) when she arrived.

Jowan must have stared as he thought that. She looked up from her vocabulary. “What's up?”

“Nothing really. My mind wandered away.”

“Better catch it,” said Macsen without looking up.

“Smartass,” Jowan replied, without heat. He reached over and ruffled Macsen's immaculate braids in the way that he “hated.” He'd grumble, but nobody ever get on Macsen's bad side by touching him.

Silvana's face relaxed into a warm smile before she went back to her work. Jowan suspected she could wear any expression she wanted, whatever she felt. But that right there- that was the real thing and it made her beautiful.

_Stop it, you're going to scare her away._ Jowan forced his eyes back to his own history book. Focus eluded him. Battles, tactics, treaties, broken treaties, coups... it usually interested him. Today, it felt as dry as the ashes all these people eventually became.

“But seriously,” Silvana interrupted his thoughts. “What are you thinking about?”

“What do you mean?”

“You must be thinking about something. I can hear the flint striking from here.”

_Interesting choice of words._ Before he could stop himself, Jowan plunged ahead. “Why did you join us, of all people, when you first got here? Syd and Petra and those folks would have welcomed you. Still would if you don't dawdle too much longer.”

“I hate that sort of thing.” Her voice came out soft and small. She rested her chin on her hands. Her eyes looked far away.

“What sort of thing?”

“Fighting for status. My family wanted to marry me to the most advantageous person they could find. Everything any noble does is to maintain their hold on what they have, or to get more. Nothing wrong with that, I guess, if it matters to you. I just find it so exhausting. Nobody around me seemed to feel the same, but after a ball or a dinner with enough important people, I always wanted to sleep for days. That crowd works that way. The stakes are smaller, but the rules are the same. When Syd and Egil waved me over, they were offering me a chance to play. I didn't have the energy.”

“I can see that. It might be nice to be asked, even so.”

“But you don't know the rules, do you?”

“I do,” Macsen softly chimed in. “But for me, it was lost before I began. I was too little when they caught me to know what secrets to keep. It doesn't matter in the end. If I want to get anywhere, it's not other mages I need to kiss up to.”

“Says Irving's protege,” said Jowan.

“Hey, I don't know what he's doing. I'm not sure my ideas and his plans align very much but I'll learn as much as he's willing to teach me. That's one of the rules. Take advantage of what's before you, whenever you can.”

Jowan looked at his little “brother” in surprise. How did he figure that out? Then it hit him. Irving was training Macsen up as next First Enchanter. If enough time passed before Irving died, and everyone forgot about Macsen's origin, it might even work.

Just one little problem. Macsen would never go along with it.

“So, what are your plans, ideally?” Jowan asked.

“The best thing would be to serve in the Bannorn. Somewhere out of the way, where there are trees, and the nobles aren't too noble. No offense, Silvie.”

“None taken.” She reached across the table and he took her hand. “That sounds nice. I guess I won't need to think about it for a while, though, behind as I am. Still, I like it here. I like it anywhere quiet and full of books. They'll need more teachers by the time I'm ready, won't they?”

_If Irving has any sense, he'll eventually figure out that you're where he should put his hopes._ “That would be good.”

“Well, and you?” She asked him.

“Me? I'm nothing special. I just focus on being the best mage I can.”

“You say like that isn't special. Maybe it seems common to you, but It's a gift the Maker doesn't give everyone.”

“Oooh, don't let Mother Cait hear you call it that. You'll be polishing silver next to genius-boy here before you know it.”

“Noted. But I'm still right.”


End file.
